From 2015: Burlington police officer Jesse Hill, responding to a report of a domestic fight, fired his weapon at a growling family dog and inadvertently hit and killed 34-year-old Autumn Steele.
Register file video

Autumn Steele, with her children, Kai and Gunner, died as a result of a police shooting in 2015. There's been an ongoing battle for police records of the shooting.(Photo: Special to the Register)

After a two-year fight, police officers’ body-camera video and records related to the fatal shooting of a Burlington woman will now be made public. State and local officials lost their battle to keep the records secret after the case took a detour through federal court.

It is a welcome outcome even if it is years late and the disclosure comes through the back door. But the fact remains the documents should have been released by law enforcement authorities, and their continued resistance to doing that sets a bad precedent.

The video and records will help shed light on the tragic death of Autumn Steele, a 34-year-old mother of two who was shot by Burlington Police Officer Jesse Hill in 2015. Hill, responding to a domestic dispute at the Steele home, fired his weapon at a dog that the officer said was attacking him, and a bullet struck Steele in the chest.

Apart from a 12-second clip from the video from Hill’s body camera, Burlington and state law enforcement authorities have refused to release more video and other police records. Their resistance continues even though Hill has been cleared of any wrongdoing and the investigation is closed.

While the Burlington Hawk Eye and other Iowa news organizations fought for access to the video and police records, the documents were introduced under seal as evidence in a federal civil suit filed by the Steele family against the city of Burlington and Officer Hill.

The suit was settled out of court with a $2 million payment to the Steele family. In the meantime, the Iowa Freedom of Information Council — whose members include the Register, other Iowa media organizations and open-government advocates — intervened in the case and urged U.S. District Judge James Gritzner to unseal all documents filed in the case.

Which is precisely what he did in an Aug. 14 order that will eventually make public videos from Hill’s and a second officer’s body cameras, a 911 call, excerpts of sworn depositions, Hill’s narrative report, medical records showing his injuries from the dog attack and an Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation agent’s deposition.

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Gritzner’s ruling was based on a principle rooted in British common law and the First Amendment that has guided the American judicial system since its founding: We do not have secret courts in this country.

With few, well-defined exceptions, courtrooms and court records are open to the public. That is true in part because parties should not be able to use the publicly funded courts to litigate their private causes in secret, and in part because it assures the public can judge the performance of the courts.

The city and Hill argued that the Burlington documents are not court records because the judge did not rule on the parties’ separate motions to dismiss the suit before the settlement.

Gritzner disagreed. He cited federal appeals-court precedent and said, "if judgment by the court was a precondition to judicial record status, numerous pleadings and other filings relating to merit-based motions would never be available for public scrutiny, leaving the general public in the dark about the core issues that drive a lawsuit.”

Even if the documents are court records, the defendants argued, they should remain sealed because they are confidential under Iowa law. “This argument is problematic in several respects.” Gritzner wrote. “If the court’s judicial records were beholden to Iowa’s confidentiality rubric, then certain records filed in conjunction with motions for summary judgment could never be released,” which he said “plainly conflicts with the federal common-law right of access to judicial records.”

Finally, the defendants argued that the first 12 seconds of Hill’s body-camera video have already been released, so there is no need to release the remainder. But the defendants themselves submitted the complete video to the court to support their argument that the Steeles’ wrongful-death contentions were not supported by the evidence.

“The fact that both parties made representations about unreleased portions of Hill’s body camera video at a public court hearing adds weight to the presumption of access in this case,” Gritzner wrote.

Indeed, for the very reasons the opposing parties in the civil suit introduced the complete videos and police records in court to plead their case, the people have a right to see the complete evidence to decide for themselves what the truth is about what happened that day in Burlington.

Hill has been exonerated by law enforcement authorities who had all the information — information that members of the public do not have. The public has a legitimate interest in knowing all of the facts and circumstances any time a law enforcement officer fatally shoots an unarmed, innocent citizen.

Gritzner’s ruling ordering release of the Burlington records was based in large part on preserving public confidence in the courts. Law enforcement authorities in Iowa should have the same concern for public confidence in their performance.

The Legislature should take action to make that happen by amending Iowa’s open-records law to guarantee the public’s right to see police records in general and body-camera videos in particular.

Toward that end, the Iowa Newspaper Association is inviting representatives of law enforcement, the news media, legislators, civil liberties and victims’ rights groups and others to meet in the coming weeks. The goal is to find consensus on proposed legislation for the 2019 session that will create a uniform standard for recording, storing and publicly releasing police videos.

Such legislation is long overdue.

The growing use of police body cameras is an opportunity for law enforcement to establish and maintain credibility with the public. That is true, however, only if the Legislature assures that the people are able to see both the good and the bad that is recorded on those cameras.